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On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:53:17 -0700 (PDT), tiewknvc9
<> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :
>Does anyone know of a free gas prices database that is available
>online???
>
>Trying to do something unique for a client (not a lowest gas price
>finder, but something that gets a good idea as to what the average
>price is for the US.

You might do screenscraping of any online database that posts prices.

Screenscraping refers to extracting information from web pages on the
web. Unless the authors permit reuse, you are violating copyright by
doing that. I got in trouble by screenscraping foreign exchange rates
off the Oanda site. Even material that looks fair game for reuse, e.g.
prices, is not necessarily so. It is a legal minefield. It seems that
manually extracting information is considered less sinful that using a
program to do it, but you can still get in trouble.

Even if you screen-scrape for non-commercial purposes, even if you
don’t repost the data, and even if you don’t put much load on their
server, they can still get irate, block you and send lawyer letters. I
think the main reason is they put up their site primarily to serve
ads, (the data offered are just bait), and you obviously are not
reading the ads if you are screenscraping

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On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:00:36 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
<> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :
>Not that your question really has anything to do with Java.

I have a different attitude toward off-topicness. Java programming
requires all kinds of peripheral information. The people most likely
to have it are fellow Java programmers who have done similar apps
before. Further, they will explain in Javaesque terms and will presume
only ordinary Java knowledge.

So when you post, you are asking a COMMUNITY of people. Further it is
better to ask these people, with whom you have a reputation, and
presumably for whom you have done favours in past, than do a one-shot
question to some pig-in-the poke newsgroup you don't even know is
active or occupied by competent people.

My tolerance for off-topicness varies with the amount of traffic. When
it gets high, my tolerance drops off. Right now traffic is relatively
low, so I welcome interesting mild diversions.

ON-TOPIC questions that have been answered hundreds of times before or
are answered on many websites accessible via Google I think deserve
more of a stink bomb.

"Roedy Green" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:53:17 -0700 (PDT), tiewknvc9
> <> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
> said :
>
>>Does anyone know of a free gas prices database that is available
>>online???
>>
>>Trying to do something unique for a client (not a lowest gas price
>>finder, but something that gets a good idea as to what the average
>>price is for the US.
>
> You might do screenscraping of any online database that posts prices.
>
> Screenscraping refers to extracting information from web pages on the
> web. Unless the authors permit reuse, you are violating copyright by
> doing that. I got in trouble by screenscraping foreign exchange rates
> off the Oanda site. Even material that looks fair game for reuse, e.g.
> prices, is not necessarily so. It is a legal minefield. It seems that
> manually extracting information is considered less sinful that using a
> program to do it, but you can still get in trouble.
>
> Even if you screen-scrape for non-commercial purposes, even if you
> don't repost the data, and even if you don't put much load on their
> server, they can still get irate, block you and send lawyer letters. I
> think the main reason is they put up their site primarily to serve
> ads, (the data offered are just bait), and you obviously are not
> reading the ads if you are screenscraping
>
> see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/screenscraping.html
> --

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